Tuesday, February 24, 2004

S.O.P.A.

No, that's not a new type of reggae music. It's Save Our Public Airwaves. I received an e-mail from the CBC freelancers mailing list I'm on and it had some stuff about this site and I must say it's an interesting place to see an inside view of Canadian media.

There's a really good article entitled Selling Ads vs. Serving Canadians which is actually a transcript of a speech given to a Senate committee. It makes the case for reinvesting in public broadcasting while recognizing the needs of the people who buy the commercial time. This paragraph in particular really struck me.

"The experience of Canada: A People's History is painfully pertinent. For two years, not a single Canadian corporation would become a sponsor of the series. Not the airlines. Not the oil companies. Not most of the financial sector. Not the manufacturing companies, the big retail chains, the communications giants. Not until the last minute when one, Sun Life, came on board. For the first year, we had four of the five commercial underwriting spots blank. The next year, Bell Canada stepped up to the plate. So to those who say, as the National Post does every day, and the Globe and Mail every other day, let the market decide, let the people vote with their eyeballs - I say: If you can't finance the history of your own country, what can you finance? "

I heartily recommend this site to anyone with an interest in Canadian media.

Oh, there's also a neat article about how CBC really hit it off with the Canada Reads series.

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